Dads, we can't expect our sons to become real men if we don't teach them how

I confess that I don't usually keep up to speed on the marketing campaigns of make up companies, but a couple of recent ones were hard to miss. First, it was announced that the new Cover Girl would be a person named James Charles, who is indeed not a girl at all. Feeling left out, Maybelline countered by naming Manny Gutierrez as its brand ambassador. Also not a girl. The country braces itself for the day when Tampax joins the fray.

It should be clarified -- because this is the sort of thing that needs to be clarified these days -- that James and Manny do not identify as women. There is no risk of them being named women of the year as Glamour Magazine did for Bruce Jenner. But they and the companies they represent have co-opted femininity in a very similar way, turning it into a grotesque sort of mask, something that can be worn when the mood strikes and removed just as quickly.

Maybelline's announcement comes directly on the heels of National Geographic's now infamous cover story about the young, abused boy who has "given up pretending to be a boy" so that he can assume his "true identity" as a girl. His parents have decided to parade him around like a circus sideshow act, ensuring that their poor son's psychological crisis will be witnessed by a large and approving crowd. And this has all happened in the last few weeks. The assault on science, reason, masculinity, and femininity continues to gain steam.

As I watch all of this, one point especially comes to mind, obvious though it ought to be: this is why boys need dads.

I do not know the life story of our friends James and Manny. I'm told that at least one of them comes from an intact family where a father was present and active in the home. Perhaps that really is the case. It's certainly possible -- though unlikely, I would think -- that a boy could have the best dad in the world and still turn into a makeup model. Children have a will and an identity of their own, after all, and there's only so much we can do to shape it.

But, generally speaking, what we're seeing unfold in our culture is largely the result of parents who didn't really do much in the way of shaping their kids. I don't think it's a coincidence that in a country where broken and fatherless homes are endemic, so many young men have mysteriously discovered their inner female. This is what happens in a lost society, not an enlightened one. And we are lost primarily because our families are lost, and our families are lost often because our men are not leading them well -- if they are even leading at all.

Here is what any half way decent parent knows: Boys must be taught how to become real men, just as girls must be taught how to become real women. Without any distractions or nefarious influences, perhaps boys would turn into well adjusted men and girls into well adjusted women purely by force of nature. But our environment does not allow for that anymore. We live in a culture intent on subverting and perverting our nature. Yes, boys are naturally inclined towards the masculine and girls towards the feminine, but many powerful forces are working to usurp the process and sow confusion into the minds of our children. These make up marketing campaigns and "transgender" magazine covers are examples -- and results -- of their efforts.

Therefore, one of our primary duties as fathers must be to show our sons what true masculinity looks and acts like. I am very aware of this responsibility with respect to my own sons. I constantly think about how quickly they might go off course as they get older, if I do not take this aspect of my fatherly duty seriously. It's not enough to simply tell them that they must be men. I have to provide for them a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute demonstration. "This is what a man is. This is what he does. This is how he carries himself. This is how he behaves. This is how he dresses. This is how he speaks." My boys will learn these lessons from someone, one way or another. That much is certain. So, if it isn't me, who will it be?

Well, we know the media is more than willing to step in on my behalf, quite generously I might add, along with academia, Hollywood, their peers, and the government. We have seen what happens when these entities are allowed to be surrogate fathers to our boys. Indeed, much of what we now call "transgenderism" and "gender non-conforming" and whatever else can be explained very simply: Dad didn't do his job.

As I said, I'm sure this does not apply in every case, but it often does. And it certainly applies in the extreme cases where very young boys are openly "living as girls." That can only happen if the parents allow it to happen. No child on Earth chooses his own lifestyle. Neither does any child understand what it means to be his own gender, much less what it means to be a different one.

A young boy cannot possibly come to "identify as a girl" because he doesn't really know what a girl is, or what he is. He doesn't understand anything about the gender he's assuming or the one he's rejecting. If he understood himself, and loved himself, he would not reject himself. If he is rejecting himself, that probably means that he has not been taught to love or understand himself. A true appreciation for his own masculine nature has not been instilled. And whatever appreciation he naturally possessed was not protected and sustained.

We would not expect our boys to learn how to read or do arithmetic or play baseball without any form of instruction whatsoever. Why then do we expect them to learn how to be men entirely on their own, especially in a society dead set on interfering in the process? As we've seen a million times, if a boy is left to learn about masculinity all alone in the wilds of modern society, he'll come to the conclusion that masculinity is either toxic or non-existent. He'll determine that the best thing a man can do is reject whatever is unique to men and begin aping the style, mannerisms, and behavior of women. He'll learn, in other words, that the best kind of man is a woman. He'll absorb this lesson even as girls learn that the best kind of woman is a man. The result is a generation of children who do not understand or appreciate their own nature and wish only to be something other than what they are.

As individual parents, we can't save a whole generation of kids all by ourselves. But hopefully we can save our own. It is our obligation to try, anyway, which is more than some of us have done thus far.

To see more from Matt Walsh, visit his channel on TheBlaze.